an incredibly fun thing that ill probably never do again

daphaknee · January 31, 2025, 8:06pm

i told @Infernarl and @SouthRatObservatory excitedly about my new upcoming teeth early last year. gushed about all the things i wanted to eat. miguel said “you know where you can eat a lot? a cruise!” and so HERE I AM, WRITING ABOUT MY 7 DAY CRUISE TO MEXICO

i still havent read the david foster wallace story my thread title is based on but im pretty sure, im PRETTY SURE without even looking at it that i had the opposite of a time as him. bottom line: ITS COMPLICATED. i loved being on a cruise and feeling nice and having free food all the time and cheesy activities in every direction i looked but like crew members not being able to speak their native language in front of passengers and the way i wasnt even allowed to clean up after myself kept making me uncomfortable. this kinda happeneed in disneyland too where i lost my mind a little from all the pampering and snuck away to the hotel to help fold towels in the basement, which was dumb! i could have got people in trouble! but i didnt and they were nice. i just … its hard to be around a ton of entitled people who dont care about making service workers lives easier because ALL MY JOBS WERE IN CUSTOMER SERVICE

that said i think if you have humanity in your heart it makes your time better because you care about everyone on the boat not just the passengers.

i like how i was like taking this all seriously and keeping notes but half of them are brain garbage

i know what this means though!! i can decode it!!!

DAY ONE - ESTABLISHING THE FOOD LOOP

we drove down to LA in a big orange maverick that miguel and sid just got to fit all my ~~teeth~~ luggage in. and hohoho i just bought an orange sweatshirt and dyed my hair orange so i very much looked like i belonged in the truck

apparently it was the ‘crimson tide edition’ that miguel was trying to rip off but he did a partial job and now it looks like it says CRIME edition. good. no one will ever suspect me if i hide in plain sight

cruise ships are huge. everyone tells you this and ive woken up plenty of mornings with the norwegian bliss pulling into the port a block away and seeing it out my window is like all those awful airplane dreams i have where im looking out the window and an airplane just flies straight into my face while i watch it coming but much slower and bigger and scarier because its real. the ship never crashes into my window but it scares me every time. because HUGE

we sailed on the NAVIGATOR OF THE SEAS, a ship from 2002, so not the newest fanciest ship but it was still 14 decks high with a ton of hot tubs and two waterslides and an ice skating rink and a theater and like 9034823904 resturaunts and like five floors of staterooms. i think the ICON OF THE SEAS is the biggest ship in the world right now if you want to see how ridiculous they get. but daphny, i need an infographic with a titanic comparison to understaaaand
me too buddy! i got you covered

oh my god this series of posts is gonna be so long. im gonna make coffee
okay i didnt need to type that out but did. i played with zaku and made coffee. IM READY

im not ready i have so much to share !!

~THE PROMENADE~ from ds9 is where we spent a lot of our time. the free pizza and sandwiches and coffee resturaunt thats open til 3am was here, and all the bars and little ‘clubs’ that almost all have some band or musician playing at the same time.

there is also tacky art everywhere. ill talk about the art auction more later but just be warned it is sub-hotel par. get ready for sprinklings of plenty of SHIT they put all over their walls. heres one of the less offensive ‘we gotta fill this space’ mosiacs. and like. i actually dont blame them for filling the spaces with gaudy shit! i watched ANOTHER video about CELEBRITY (edit! not princess! miguel will not let me besmirch his beloved princess cruises and their superior pizza) and their walls were COMPLETELY BLANK with nothing on them like a prison or hospital and yeah ill take the shitty hotel art on every surface instead of that any day. its funny too because celebrity is also owned by royal caribbean and its clearly roycar trying to be classy, which they’re incapable of

as SOON as a song fades another one comes blaring in your ears. the only safety is your dark room, or a swift elevator ride. at all other times there will ALWAYS be music playing (@Father.Torque THE FUCKING SONGS. THEY PLAYED ALL OF THE SONGS i wouldnt have been able to identify most of them a few weeks ago!!)

also they just have an orange thing sitting around on the promenade. i wanted to steal it so bad, it matched my outfit!!! a lady agreed we should steal it but we never enacted our plan. just good to meet more fellow CRIME EDITIONS on the boat

oh yeah i was about to talk about our rooms. just expect bouncing around through time and space and thoughts. im not a professional and this is why. okay once i get done cleaning zakus litterbox though

i got hungry after cleaning the litterbox and made myself a bowl of cottage cheese and pears. i usually do pineapples but the target near me hasnt had canned pineapples for like two months. is there a pineapple shortage? if i look this up i will be even more distracted so im going to try to rememebr what the fuck i was talking about before

ROOMS

god whatever i dont know where i am. we tipped the porter who was bragging about his gains from throwing luggage around so our bags could disappear and reappear in our rooms in afew hours

AND WE WENT TO THE ROOM

my room was great! we got a room WITHOUT a view. which honestly. its cheaper and seems the way to go? your room is PITCH BLACK at night and you get to fall asleep in darkness while softly being rocked by the ocean. climate control is also easier cuz you dont have a huge window facing the tropics so i could keep my room fucking COLD. love a cold room. we watched a video before the trip about this specific ship and everything he said was a lie so i had super low expecations of no plugs and no room for storage and shitty space management but our room was the opposite! closet had all the room we needed, beds were perfectly high enough to slide our checked bag size luggage underneath, tons of plugs and usb ports (power strips are banned from cruises but you can bring like multi plug ports or whatever they’re called. i never used it though)

like i expected them to be TINY because we were in a boat but it was mostly just smart. the bathroom could have been bigger but all bathrooms can always be bigger. all bathrooms could have claw footed tubs for depression soaks and a giant hot tub bath for parties and three showers and a couch but they never do. they NEVER do! this bathroom had a circular shower that i kept thinking had a wet door but that was just the PATTERN ON THE PLASTIC they did it so it looked like it had water drops on it!!! wily bastards!!! there was also a clothesline for drying in the shower! more smart space usage. i turned off the tv immediately becuase hte borderlands movie was in every category of movie and i dont watn to think about shitty stuff. why would i watch a movie on the tiny tv in my room anyway when i could watch a movie on the BIG SCREEN OUTSIDE from a HOT TUB OR POOL (spoiler: i didnt end up doing this, all my hot tub time was spent in the adults only space of the SOLARIUM)

okay. so we established the beds were comfy. the art is bad. miguel and sids room was ours mirrored, they even had the same bad art of a wave on the beach and a hand holding a nautilus shell. i hated the hand holding the shell art, i hated it so much
OH THE WALLS WERE METAL SO IF YOU WERE MAD ABOUT THE LACK OF STORAGE, WHICH THERE WASNT A LACK OF, YOU COULD JUST SLAP SOME METAL HOOKS ON THE WALLS

oh yeah the doors and duckies. its like, ship tradition on royal caribbean cruises that you hide/find duckies all over. like little rubber ducks. i never really looked for them but we found three. one was watching me take the raunchiest most diabolic shit right outside the buffet so i kept him, one was in the elevator and veronica hid him again later and i dont rememebr where the third one was that we found but i kept him too. you CAN rehide them if you want but no. im keeping it. i EARNED these ducks

DOORS. everyone slaps shit on their doors like its a college dorm! its surprising how many sub-industries there are for ships. like oh the people that sell ship themed door magnets, cruise themed shirts, hats, just so much shit you can BUY BUY BUY thats pointless, like our bed was super comfy, but right next to it was a little card that said

If you enjoyed the comfort of your stateroom, recreate the experience at home and leave sleepless nights behind. Catch more Z’s with our Royal Caribbean Bedroom Collection engineered for maximum relaxation and uninterrupted rest. Visit our site to purchase items for the Royal Caribbean Bedding Collection.

like jeez! EVERYTHING YOU SAW YOU COULD BUY

back to doors most people had mini whiteboards/big magnets that they bought specfically for their door for the cruise. or magnet poetry
this door has all three!

this was our door!

miguel and sids had space invaders without the mr saturns. i could have placed them better ididnt like how i put all the same saturns next to eachother but i was doing it very hastily becuase i have anxiety about being in peoples way!!! what if there was an emergency and i was just sitting there trying to figure out the perfect aesthetic spread of mr saturns!!! what if someone DIED because of mr saturn!! hed be so upset!!

oh yeah themed shirts. people loved wearing shirts with like, funny phrases on them, many related to the cruise. i kept a list!

10000 oh, ship shirts
my wife is psycHOTic
IBS, I BE SHITTIN
‘look out, I got the drink package’
'if I can’t wear my flip flops I ain’t going ’
‘working harder than an ugly stripper’
breaking news: I don’t care
child in ‘not just a mom’ sweater
slaps dicks cattle Co. ‘meat that’s hard to beat’
hooray for axolotl
I’m just here for the trivia
she’s armed and dangerous
Moore plumbing ‘laying pipe since 1989’
made of magic and sprinkled with sarcasm
no bad day’s
hotter than a hoochie coochie
I support some sex marriage
ask me about my dog (I have pictures)
my therapist has whiskers [picture of cat]
don’t worry I’ve had both my shots and one extra to be safe [picture of three glasses of booze]
tumor (like some weird undecipherable squiggle) if you have to ask you wouldn’t understand
I’m a multitasker I can listen, ignore and forget at the same time
blame the drink package
built in the 60s,some parts still in working order
god knew I needed an angel, so he sent me a wife
education isn’t important, DRUMMING is important
40s and shorties
bad desicisons good times worldwide

i think a good cruise shirt would be one that just had ALL of these on it. i didnt come up with that idea. two of my friends who i showed the list to did, separate of eachother, so it must be a great idea

we havent even established the food loop!!! every night at 5 we sat in the MAIN DINING ROOM and every day from between 9 am and 9 pm we went to the WINDJAMMER which was the huge buffet full of food that you dont know if its gonna be great or a scientific mixture of zero salt zero fat food that LOOKS like what you want to eat but tastes NOTHING LIKE WHAT YOU KNOW TO BE FOOD. woo! i love a gamble. ill try to talk more in depth about food on certain days or whatever. but just remember that i was basically stuffing my face every two hours, and i didnt pay for any food at all even though they had ‘premium’ resturaunts that i was convinced just used more salt. BUT I DONT KNOW FOR SURE CUZ I DIDNT EAT ANYTHING FROM THEM

also all the windows in the buffet are HUGE so when you’re at sea/at port its just a beautiful place to eat. we’re still at the port in LA here but WINDOWS!!! VIEW!!! WOOO

everywhere had a view honestly, me and veronica found these huge round chairs that we took a quick nap in before the ship left port.

i just really like talking about the view while its still shipping containers and parking lots

we were planning on staying in our shaded corner through the ship leaving port but we got too eager to explore and left our post to wander around. it got snatched up immediately by another pale couple so more power to them. SHOUT OUT TO ALL THE PALE PEOPLE ON BOARD WHO APPLIED SUNSCREEN RESPONSIBLY AND DIDNT GET BURNED. I WAS WATCHING YOU WITH APPROVAL!!! i avoided sunburn as well!! wahooo!!!

okay i have to talk about ace of base now. for some reason, at the windjammer buffet had music playing constantly, but on the first day, every time we went i kept hearing ‘all that she wants’. like, A LOT. like every third song, and all the songs they play on cruise speakers are like truncated 2 minute or less versions, so when its every third song its playing every 4 minutes ,thats a lot of fucking ace of base. thats a lot of someone going ALL THAT SHE WANTS IS ANOTHER BABY. i became convinced that it was either 1. a way for the resturuant to keep people from staying in there for hours and eating all the food or 2. a way for people to think about conception so theyd have more babies to take more cruises and make royal caribbean more money. i was so afraid of hearing all that she wants all week, every time i ate. when we went to the windjammer for double dinner IT WAS THE ONLY SONG PLAYING. i wasnt prepared for this horror, i could not handle ace of base that much. and its not even i saw the sign! which is also terrible but like, not tellijng me CONCEIVE CONCEIVE CONCEIVE over and over. would i ever be free from this song?? it played so much we started keeping count! at least 17 plays from 3pm-9pm for three seperate buffet visits!!

STAY TUNED FOR DAY 2!!

oh wait ! the stalwart soul roomate!
it was a poop

after all that eating on the first day i finally got to sit on my toilet and take a shit but it WOULD NOT GO DOWN, it wouldnt leave hte toilet! just completely stuck to the side was a huge ass turd and whenever you sit on the toilet you’re met face to face with a warning that says ANY OBSTRUCTIONS TO THE TOILET WILL MEET A FINE OF UP TO 100 DOLLARS.so of course i panicked and broke up the cardboard box holding our soap and used it to break my shit into pieces and flush it down. but there was still STILL a little turd clinging to the side of the toilet, so we called it our roomate. our new friend

he eventually went down in the middle of the night THANK GOD BEFORE OUR BOY TOTOK CLEANED THE ROOM but he stuck aroudn long enough for us to remember
so the miguels semen thing is just a joke of his large sperms clogging the toilet with their thick stubborn heads. that note is pure brain garbage

@iguferon @SouthRatObservatory @Infernarl feel free to correct all the shit im misremembering on DAY ONE but dont get ahead of yourselves!!!

hopefully every other post wont be this long or at least ill be able to fucking focus on them

daphaknee · January 31, 2025, 8:09pm

FUCK DONT READ IT YET I FORGOT TO FINISH A THOUGHT

edit okay thought finished you can read now

iguferon · January 31, 2025, 8:13pm

i never want to hear ace of base again. it was like listening to an album where its just one song over and over again every time you sat down to eat

Father.Torque · January 31, 2025, 10:29pm

Hilarious thinking about you with furrowed brow seriously researching the world of guitar guys with cargo shorts bar gig music

Myspace_Mavis · February 1, 2025, 8:28am

that ace of base song is an invasive species that propagates via luxury ships

spinnylights · February 1, 2025, 10:43pm

It’s kind of fun to imagine what anarchist cruise ships could be like. One angle I keep coming back to is like a 19th-century music appreciation society or something but for a cruise ship, like where a bunch of people have gotten together and decided they want a cruise ship to exist, and somehow they’ve managed to negotiate with all the other people who want to use large ships for something and successfully made the case that it’s worth it to dedicate at least one of them to cruises, and people who want to with the right expertise volunteer to fill the important crew positions and live on the ship full-time, and everyone else enters into a lottery or something and gets a week on the ship if their name comes up, and all the menial work like cleaning and simple stuff in the kitchen and so on is divvied up by the “visitors” amongst themselves.

I think the closest thing I can think of to an anarchist cruise ship that I’ve seen in fiction is the Thames in Xenogears. I know they have a captain but I feel like he comes off more as a ceremonial figure than someone who actually wields much hard power. They’re not technically a cruise ship either of course, they’re salvagers I know, but so many people on the ship seem to just be partying or wandering around that I feel like it has a kind of cruise atmosphere all the same maybe.

It does seem kind of sad to have it caged up that way, even if it is a blue velvet rope cage. I think it deserves a little park-sized terrarium on the ship where you can drive it around, like a plant conservatory but with roads, and a ventilation system to deal with the exhaust I guess. Maybe it could have a foyer before you go in with a bunch of costume stuff you could use like silly hats and the like. They could have a waiting list where people sign up in groups of 4 and get 15 minutes with it or whatever. Then it could roam around and be in something more like its natural habitat.

COINTELBRO · February 2, 2025, 2:18am

iirc those are the parts david foster wallace hated about it except he was too snooty and neurotic to enjoy the fun ones

Father.Torque · February 2, 2025, 6:56am

To be fair to old DFW I don’t think I’m terribly snooty but I didn’t find much fun about cruises either

daphaknee · February 2, 2025, 7:16am

snoot snoot

captainlove · February 2, 2025, 12:47pm

I love this shit because it feels like there are cottage industries dedicated to decorating large corporate voidspaces and malls and things but I’m never sure if the taste is dictated by assumptions about clientele or if the people doing it just love the emptiest kitsch. I have a fetish for corporate lobbies in particular which also sometimes feature large novelty vehicles for flash.

SUPERSONNICK · February 2, 2025, 2:22pm

Wellllllll~~~~lllll there is a, uh, good reason to keep it safely tucked away somewhere, even if i am def. fond of cars being given a space to stretch their legs once in a while.

didn’t know until today that it was called

The Thing

in the good ol’ USA and Canada, but tbh, I like the italian

Pescaccia

that tiny bit better

daphaknee · February 2, 2025, 2:41pm

things are one of my favorite cars so I was excited to see it every day

SUPERSONNICK · February 2, 2025, 7:12pm

so you could be sayin’ …

wait for it …

that you have a thing for THE THING?

SouthRatObservatory · February 2, 2025, 11:15pm

The duck thing is for all cruises, not just RCL. And the doors, too (so many pineapple jokes! The secret is out! Makes me wonder what symbol the swingers are using now.) I didn’t bring any ducks bc I’d seen on the Facebook group (there is a Facebook group for each individual sailing, filled with Facebook People, a delightful complement to the larger anthropological adventure) that some people were bringing hundreds of ducks. But there were also so many children on major Elmer Fudd missions that I only found one duck the whole week.

Being Served is my very least favorite thing about cruises. I can handle the crowds and the terrible pop music, but I find not being able to do anything for myself really upsetting. If I hadn’t already done it when our waiters arrived at the table for dinner, one of them would pick up my napkin with a flourish and place it on my lap. I felt very grateful to no longer be addicted to diet soda - on previous cruises I had no choice but to ask for soda several times a day, every time a flash back to childhood.

daphaknee · February 5, 2025, 7:13pm

I HAVENT FORGOTTEN I JUST GOT REAL SAD!!! next post tomorrow or tonight

IM JUST SAD

daphaknee · February 6, 2025, 9:53pm

GOOD MORNING! - the towel crab

DAY 2 - ENSENADA AND CIGARS

lets start this day off right, with hurried hall pictures of BAD ART! most of the bad art was on the stairs and in the hall so i wouldnt really take my time to COMPOSE a picture since i was paranoid about being in the way. and i could have taken even more pictrues of the shitty art. it was EVERYWHERE. but i hope to sprinkle some in every day so you ahve a smal idea of what your eyes are in for

oops some of this is first day bad art, AND OH NO ITS NOT ALL TERRIBLE because we found some movie posters. floors had a loose theme. our floor i think was FASHION themed and this floor was MOVIE themed. or vice versa. its only been a week and my brain is falling apart

thats the stuff

buttplug

they only played ace of base three times at breakfast the next day. and miguel noticed that ‘love on the run’ kept happening. do they cycle the fucking songs out? is this really an attempt at stopping me from getting a fourth plate of beef stew? oh wait its breakfast i dont get 5 plates of beef stew i get 2 plates of HASH AND EGGS (i actually never really went over 2 or three plates in the buffet. it wasnt the music stopping me it was the lack of SALT)

coffee was always good on the ship though, im guessing because the crew needs lots of coffee at all times. and it was FREE. juice was FREE. gimmie my flavor bevvies. gimmie
that cottage cheese may LOOK normal but it was not. it tasted so badly of chemicals i could not register it as food as HARD as my brain and tongue tried. i couldnt swallow it, i can eat aunt myrnas party cheese salad and chug a gallon of milk im not fucking picky about my dairy products but this cottage cheese almost made me retch. i never touched it again, which su cked becuase I LIKE EATING COTTAGE CHEESE AND PINEAPPLE IN THE MORNING. did you know nixon liked to put ketchup on his cottage cheese? THE MONSTER. he also liked to put a1 on his cottage cheese which i would have tried in my a1-with-every-meal plan that i had cuz a1 is expensive, BUT NO THE COTTAGE CHEESE WAS TOO TERRIBLE. NOT EVEN A1 COULD HAVE SAVED IT

oh yeah they played the pogues stream of whiskey during breakfast, the first song i liked that played in 24 hours. it was like touching grass after getting out of jail

MEXICO! IM IN MEXICO! the highlight of our trip: BEING IN MEXICO

i never went to mexico before and i know im on a cruise ship so im getting a very curated buy buy buy buy buy buy experience but man mexico is pretty. our first stop was ENSENADA. HOME OF THE MARGARITA. my first and last time after getting off the boat because its too hard not to spend money and i dont have money! also the boat was super the point for me and you get great views from the boat while still being on a huge boat. if i ever went on a cruise again i might get off the boat twice but i really ilke being on the boat

its really hard to realize how big the boat is until you get off it. i forced miguel to play earthbound on the cruise (lightly forced, a friendly force) and agreed to a culture exchange, if he plays earthbound ill watch the transformers movie. he got stuck in the mall eventually but it wasnt until like halfway through the trip so i got to make lots of earthbound jokes including making him say fuzzy pickles

wait before we go to ensenada i bet you wanna see more bad boat art

OKAY WE’RE IN ENSENADA NOW. they always park the boat like 2-3 miles from where everything is so you can pay four dollars for a shuttle service, which we did because fuck it what if i dont have enough time to explore? and four dollars round trip is cheaper than the busses in the south bay area so DOUBLE FUCK IT

people kept telling miguel he looked like ‘an explorer’ or that he ‘knew what he was doing’ or that ‘he enjoyed a good cigar’

we went to the pharmacy for cheap medicine and the mascot was so cute, i wanted to support it, locally

i almost bought a plushie of this silly g uy. they had so many. you could get him as a star wars man, or a cowboy, or santa! the possibilities were endless with the pharmacy grandpa

i love pharmacy grandpa

i love convience stores but in mexico i loved hunting down the food with the most black hexagons. all their shit warned you about how nasty and bad it was. our food should do this

lets bring the black hexagon system home!!

other than that i had a very typical off-the-cruiseship tourist experience. being hounded by literally every shopkeep and salesman and person EVER to buy something. adn they were pretty mellow until i broke the seal and bought veronica an ensenada dirt race shirt. she loves it. here she is wearing it after me telling her to make ‘a happy tourist face!’ for the camera

but as soon as i purchased something i got shuffled into this long line of vendors literally telling me MY TURN and IF YOU GAVE THAT (SLUR) A CHANCE WHY NOT ME. please sir do not appeal to me with racial slurs!!! im just poncho shopping!!!

lets go shopping in ensenda together! just imagine someone running up to you every 30 seconds with something in their hands that they think you want. its a little overwhelming but i also dont give a fuck if i get fleeced a little bit in mexico becuase 1. take my money 2. its still fucking cheap

my favorite things were the genitals and titties everywhere (good eye catchers!) and the hand-painted ceramic funko pops

my least favorite thing?

getting put in the Tourism Combo. okay it wasnt actually the worst thing cuz iwas having a good time at this point. the dudes were really nice and found me a poncho in the exact colors i wanted but kept being like BUY A SOMBRERO TOO and im like please no. its too big. its too much. not seen is the VIVA MEXICO embroidered into the top. i like sombreros they’re just not for me. ive wanted a fucking poncho since i was tiny though, and red dead 1 solidfied this desire because i wore the one you get for unlocking mexico throughout the whole game! im problematic! but im problematic with a REALLY FUCKING COMFY PONCHO
after i bought a poncho the guy gave me a shot of tequila with it, which was very fruity. then he tried to sell me more tequila. I JUST WANTED THE PONCHO

i also got a bracelet each for me and veronica. i needed a new evil eye bracelet since mine broke (NEVER A BAD THING WHEN THEY BREAK IT MEANS THEY SAVED YOU FROM SOMETHING EVIL HAPPENING. MINE BREAK ALL THE TIME! IM SURROUNDED BY EVIL!!) and i got her a really cute pink beaded bracelet. dont tell her but im jealous. its a good bracelet

speaking of bracelets after we bought some bootleg pit vipers and cigars the guy was like ‘ARE YOU HUNGRY’ and one of us (we dont remember who! but it was probably me) said yes and we got shuffled towards a resturaunt with AMAZING TACOS AND PICKLED RED ONIONS that were super affordable but oops! 30 dollar margaritas! sure, we’ll have three of those! OOPS! the whole time we were eating there was just a non stop parade of children, musicians, and those dudes with the custom bracelets that have words on them. he was like ‘oh you like funny things’ and flipped over the bracelet board and they all said shit like FAT PUSSY. I <3 ANAL. BIG COCK. TINY COCK.

these bracelets. they’re everywhere. BUT IM NOT BUYING! so the resturaunt was like: take a bite, tell a child no, take a bite, tell a man you dont want to hear his song, take a bite, tell the bracelet man no. watch him flip his board to the lewd side and tell him no again. oh the child is back, give her pesos for gum, take a bite, no no thank you. it doesnt feel good! the tacos feel great in my tummy though. but im overwhelmed and ready to go back to BOATING

before we got on the bus though i met the sweetest friendliest dog that once i got to pet almost followed me on the bus. im stupid and didnt take a picture of the dog becuase i was too busy petting her. just imagine a lab-sized light brown mutt with short thick labrador hair but a black muzzle. like maybe a ridgeback/lab mix with a bit of shepherd. she was sweet. i should have taken her on the bus and all the way home

BOATING (now with poncho)

THE CIGAR SAGA

im a genious so i got cigarettes because i wanted to hang out in the smoking section of the ship because i knwo thats where ill actually get to talk to people. this ended up paying off REALLY WELL and i made real friends through the cruise. we’re gonna meet one of them tonight but nOT YET NOT YET

first it was dinner in the main dining hall. the most overwhelming time on the boat. you can order as many servings as you want of everything they have offer on the menu, and there are huge blaring speakers playing music randomly, and when the msuci starts alllllll the wait staff have to like prance around in a circle nad clap their hands and THAT FELT BAD TOO. PLEASE DONT DANCE FOR ME, OH GOD. I CANT SCOWL I GOTTA CLAP ALONG I CANT BE MEAN BUT OH GOD YOU DONT HAVE TO DANCE FOR ME. and of course hte songs t hey picked were always annoying. but like, at least two of them seemed to really like it. one of which was the main washy washy happy happy girl. OH SHIT I DIDNT TALK ABOUT WASHIE WASHIE HAPPY HAPPY YET. well that can wait for double dinner. i am scrolling around wildly inserting things i rmemeber from the day after the fact so this post will probably be harder to read than the first

dinner was pretty much always serviceable. but sometimes it was OFFENSIVE. YOU’LL SEE. and sometimes it was really good! there were a bunch of appetizers i got multiple of over hte week, but not tonight. tonight was normal i dont even remember what i ate that night. wait yes i do i got french onion soup, beef tenderloin and creme bruelle. it was fine, creme bruelle is always fun to CRACK.

anyroad back to the smoking deck!! WE MUST LIGHT THE CIGAR. they dont sell lighters and NONE OF THE BARS have matches on board, so we had to get a 70 cent lighter in ensenada, which was perfectly fine for lighting cigarettes but just like. little baby weak flame in the wind could NOT light up a stogie well

so there was lots of huddling down in the breeze trying desperately to get miguels fat fat cigar lit. veronicas was more petite so it lit easier

but miguel ended up burning FIVE HOLES in his vest from shit flying everywhere in the wind and mad puffing and just STR UGGLING. struggling so hard

here he is having his cigar ALMOST lit

a woman chainsmoking on the deck started talking to us and laughing about the cigar mishaps, saying that her husband had a hard time too, but not as hard of a time as miguel. also she started doing the straight person thing of just complaining non stop about her husband like thats suppsoed to be charming. he was getting acupuncture so i got to make a prick joke that she liked at least. later she did a racist impression of philipinos that left me cold and like maybe this lady ISNT as friendly as i thought. she had that amazing wrinkled up old bag smoker voice though so it wasnt all bad. it was just mostly bad vibes hanging out with her. boy howdy i thought, i hope everyone i meet on the smoking deck isnt a racist

ENTER PAUL (paul prelude) WHO WAS NOT!!! YAY!!! a racist

we spent like 20-30 minutes talking to this really outgoing dude going on about the new jersey drone stuff and how the news was stupid cuz they’ve been doing crazy shit around where he lives for YEARS and no ones said anything. you’ll see fucking EYES up there in the sky, its crazy he said. he was sitting next to a very elderly man who we had to help get out of the deck chair, because old man was tired and needed to go to bed. i kinda like that guy i thought, i hope i see him again. he seems like hes seen some shit in a fun way.

after cigars we decided to go to double dinner, whcih miguel didnt eat much of because nicotine was coursing through his drug virgin veins. he was like ‘i dont feel bad but i feel like im vibrating and im not hungry’

BUT NOW I CAN TALK ABOUT WASHIE WASHIE

so when you enter the windjammer cafe, the buffet, you go through this small hall lined with sinks so you can wash your fucking hands before touching all the food. every day there would always be someone in costume, sometimes with a guitar doing some take on the phrases ‘WASHIE WASHIE, YUMMY YUMMY! HAPPY HAPPY!’ miguel tried to get them to say GNOSHIE GNOSHIE but it didnt stick. sometimes the guitar guy would be singing la bamba but the chorus would be WAAASHIE, WASHIE. they always wore costumes that had somethign to do with the menu in the dining hall that night, but in the morning they just dressed up as random shit, or food, or inflatable dinosaurs. i loved the washie washie people. i staretd saying it with them whenever i went to the buffet. there was one lady who i always took selfies with every time i saw her. like id see her and id go SELFIE SELFIE. you cant really enjoy a cruise unless you meet it on its own level i was realizing. the washie washie crew were my favorite cheeseball part of the ship. constantly nagging everyone to wash their hands seems like a hard thing to do and they made it fun. now im always thinking WASHIE WASHIE HAPPY HAPPY. my hands are clean!

i hate so many pictures i took of myself but my selfie camera was fucked up and blurry for half the cruise and the washie washie area was crowded so i wasnt gonna be like HOLD ON LEMME WASTE YOUR TIME AND TAKE THREE MORE TIL ITS PERFECT i just wanted to run and gun, to shoot and scoot, to snap and crap (the bathroom right outside the buffet was my most used bathroom that wasnt in my room)

we decided to be true cruise denizens and go to A SHOW. it was just like, this sampler platter of BALLROOM DANCING throughout the ages. the singing was good, the costumes were good, the dancing was safe, but entertaining. miguel said it was artless but i mean, we’re on a royal caribbean cruise!! I DONT REALLY EXPECT HIGH ART but i was entertained and impressed by the talent. i kinda hated their sound system after the first day though. lots of weird sound balance issues. i FEEL like they slowly got better over the week but i also remember being disappointed at hte way some singers sounded over eachother during this performance

the costumes were fun though. i especially liked when they dressed up like wario

we were pooped but there was another event at the STAR LOUNGE called PARTY MUSIC WITH CRONOS and yes. whats that. i want to know about a band named CRONOS that plays party music every night for two and a half hours in the star lounge when every other act and activity is 45 minutes. and it wasnt the kind of party i expected. but they did country covers and were like ‘we’re cronos from alabama’ then did stanislav whiskey (i am not familar with the song tennessee whiskey and the entire week was trying to figure out what he said before whiskeyyyyy in that song and my guess, after hearing it about 4 times was stanislav. leave me alone) and hten said ‘just kidding we’re from manila’ ill post more about cronos in day 3 because that was the day we got attacked by BOB from twin peaks. everyone was getting tired so we left cronos after about 5 songs, but i made a point to come back becuase wow they were actaully really talented, and seemed to like the songs that they had to play over and over and over again

but for now, i want to be rocked to sleep by the ocean in my pitch black room that i cant see my hand in front of my face in. i think the balcony rooms are a rip off, the view you can get anywehre on the boat and they get too hot from the sun. PITCH BLACK STATEROOM IS THE WAY TO GO

GOODNIGHT HERES MORE BAD ART

and good moon

Infernarl · February 6, 2025, 10:09pm

Editor’s note: Hexagons have six sides.

wourme · February 6, 2025, 10:23pm

Before I saw the photos I thought you meant they put up a sign letting tourists know that they probably won’t like candy from Mexico.

I love those big spicy tamarind bars but in my experience most people who aren’t used to them don’t care for them at all. (I can find only the smaller, flatter ones where I live and they aren’t the same.)

iguferon · February 6, 2025, 10:29pm

Gerald Ford is the guy who put A1 on his cottage cheese. He had a big gravy boat of A1 at all times.

falsedan · February 6, 2025, 11:22pm

thank you for this travelogue. tho now I am looking at the Queen Mary 2 & cross referencing berth prices to North Atlantic storms. how can I get the foulest crossing for my buck